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Beijing Olympics Blast Off with High-Tech Flair: Gallery

It's 8/8/08, and at 8pm (8am EDT) today China staged a power-packed opening ceremony for this summer's already high-tech Olympic games that will set the standard of excellence (or extravagance) for future ceremonies. Cai Guo-Qiang, an installation artist and a master with gunpowder, designed the fireworks (with the help of the Grucci Family) for the ceremony, and as you can see from the following pictures, he didn't disappoint. Worldwide, today's ceremony may turn out to be the most watched event in television history, and the TV footage broadcast in the U.S. by NBC matched China's ambition for the games as it was shot entirely with HD cameras. Check out the slide show, then hit PM's Olympic Science 101 to prepare for streaming the rest of the games to your computer.

Dec 18, 2009

(Photograph by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

(Photograph by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

Photograph by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

(Photograph by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images)

Photograph by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

(Photograph by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)

Photograph by Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images

(Photograph by Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images)

Photograph by Julian Finney/Getty Images

(Photograph by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Photograph by Clive Rose/Getty Images

(Photograph by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

(Photograph by Phil Walter/Getty Images)

Photograph by Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images

(Photograph by Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images)

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